Rethinking Tsarnaev police work

Bomb detection dogs will wander among those attending and participating in this year's Worcester County St. Patrick's Parade.

Their presence will be a first in the parade's 32-year history and is a reminder that the wave of fear triggered by the Boston Marathon bombing continues to expand into all facets of our lives.

Police Chief Gary Gemme did his best to downplay the creeping presence of this fear by suggesting that having bomb-sniffing dogs at the parade is merely a prudent public safety step.

"We have to be cognizant of what happened in Boston and make sure when Worcester has major events, the best level of security and services is being provided without a police-state atmosphere," he told reporter Scott Croteau earlier this week.

But as it pertains to a police-state atmosphere, one could argue that horse has already left the barn, given the advent of bomb detection dogs at public gatherings, the widening NSA eavesdropping measures and the growing number of police-controlled cameras and listening posts in our communities.

Yet, I wonder if we have done our due diligence in determining whether these privacy intrusions make us any safer, or whether they merely mask a building erosion in the legitimacy of our democratic institutions.

Susan Zalkind, a freelance journalist and friend of one of three men hacked to death in a Waltham apartment in 2011, raised a similar provocative question in a recent Boston Magazine article when she wondered whether diligent and good old-fashioned police work on that case could have prevented the Boston Marathon bombings.

According to Ms. Zalkind, Waltham police were less than thorough in their investigation of the 2011 triple murder, in which the throats of three men — Erik Weissman, Brendan Mess (both pot dealers), and Rafi Teken — were cut.

She noted how investigators failed to "follow up on seemingly obvious leads." They didn't, for example, visit the gym where Brendan trained, or question Tamerlan Tsarnaev, "one of Brendan's best friends."

Yet, as Ms. Zalkind noted, FBI investigators, "within mere hours" of the Boston bombings, were able to link Tamerlan, one of the bombers, to the triple murders and to detain one of the bomber's friends, Ibragim Todashev.

Mr. Todashev was later shot and killed under mysterious circumstances by Boston FBI agents in an Orlando, Fla., apartment. He was on the verge, according to FBI investigators, of providing them with a written confession of his involvement in the triple murder when an agent shot him in self-defense. The FBI, which quashed the coroner's report on the case, has yet to provide a report on what happened.

"If you believe the FBI's account," Ms. Zalkind said, "then you must also believe this: If Waltham police had figured out who hacked three men to death on September 11, 2011, there's a good chance we would not be talking about the Boston Marathon bombings. Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Ibragim Todashev might be alive and in jail. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev might be just another mop-headed, no-name stoner at UMass Dartmouth."

Tuesday, Ms.Zalkind told me that "it's possible that even if local police followed up on every single lead they still wouldn't have been able to close this case. But what is so disturbing is that they didn't."

And it is even more disturbing that so many Americans are unwilling to accept that acts of shoddy police work and acts of unaccountable killings at the hands of law enforcement officials present a bigger threat to our democracy than acts of terrorism.